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Artist Description | Torchmen Quartet
Their mission is to spread the gospel through southern gospel music, and to help nurture an environment where Christian music is a viable alternative to non-Christ based entertainment.
Mike Moran
Mike was born in Cambridge, Ontario, or as he insists, Hespeler, and has been with the Torchmen from their beginning. He and his wife Roberta now live in St.Catharines, where they raised three children who are now grown up. Karen and her husband Peter live in Springfield, Virginia with their three children. David, who was born during the Torchmen’s first year, when Roberta was the pianist, is a mechanic, married and living in St. Catharines and has two children. Lori is a social worker in St. Catharines and is the mother of Mike’s sixth grandchild.
Now that the children have left the nest, he enjoys taking trips with Roberta. Mike, who was also quite an accomplished water skier in his youth, started out singing rock and roll as a teenager, but when he found the Lord, he traded his “doo-waps” for praises, singing with a number of groups before joining the Torchmen. His voice has become quite familiar to Niagara peninsula residents because of his radio work. For many years he hosted a radio show called “Gospel North”, playing both current and “Golden Oldies” of southern gospel music. Mike is quite a nostalgic fellow (he’d be more nostalgic if his memory was better) and he loves to play and talk about the giants of the past. The Canadian Gospel Music Association showed their appreciation to Mike when he was awarded a “Lifetime Achievement Award” a few years ago.
Of the many experiences Mike has had with the group, his most memorable are a 14 day singing tour of Haiti and performing on both the old and new stages of the Grand Ole Opry. During the past 34 years Mike has sung baritone, lead, and in a few emergencies, tenor. For the last number of years he has fronted the group and has exhausted the entire contents of Billy Whiz-Bang’s joke book. The rest of the boys would appreciate people sending him some new material so they could laugh at the jokes too. Don’t make them too long so he can remember them. Mike still loves singing and serving the Lord and has found no reason to quit to be convincing enough, so you can expect to hear those same old jokes and some really good inspired singing to continue for a good while yet.
Sandy MacGregor
Born and raised in Kitchener Ontario, Sandy has been married to his lovely wife Heidi for 29 1/2 years. They have two children. Tim is married and is pastoring in Harbour Breton NFLD. Christine is a private music teacher in Kitchener.
At age seventeen, after a few years of turmoil as a youth and experiencing a broken family, Sandy rededicated his life to Christ, influenced of his Godly mother. He began singing in Southern Gospel quartets at age 17, joining “The Watchmen Quartet” and at age 22 his music ministry continued with “The Chapelaires”, a country gospel, mixed quartet, where he sang lead for 4 years. Sandy also did a couple of short stints as baritone in both “The Chrystalaires” and “The Royal City Quartet”. As well, he sang lead for “The Singing Canadians” for 2 years, however, Sandy is probably best known for his ministry with “The Torchmen Quartet”, 3 years as lead and four years as their tenor. He also formed and sang lead in a Christian Blues outreach band called “Damascus”. Before joining the Torchmen for the third (and hopefully final) time he sang with The Middle Cross Quartet for six years. His musical influences include The Cathedrals, The Happy Goodmans, and The Kingsmen of the 70’s and 80’s. Sandy works in a High School in Kitchener with high risk youth. In his spare time Sandy and Heidi enjoy their boat “This Side of Heaven”
Dave Randall
Dave was raised Michigan. He and his wife Jayne (Hewgill) now reside in Clarksburg, Ontario. They have two teenage daughters, Chelsea and Rachel. Also on the Randall hobby-farm are 2 cats, 1 pony and 1 horse. Dave is a school teacher in Thornbury at Beaver Valley Community. He teaches instrumental music and core subjects to grade 7s and 8s.
Since recording his first CD in June 2001, Dave has travelled to many churches to sing gospel music. It has been a wonderful opportunity to tell the gospel story. And Dave loves to sing!!! Along with singing on the TV show 100 Huntley Street, Dave has performed the national anthems at the Skydome in Toronto and at Comerica Park in Detroit. On cold, winter Saturday evenings, you can find Dave at the local hockey arena in Thornbury as the voice of the River Rats hockey team.
Jon Hisey
Southern Gospel Music has been an integral part of Jon’s life as long as he can remember. As a kid, he would tag along to hear his dad’s quartet (the Workmen Quartet), or listen to his uncle’s quartet (Outreach, or the Wrights). Jon’s dad often wondered if he had a bad bearing in the car, but would always look in the rear view mirror to see his son, singing along to some Cathedral Quartet 8 track. His dad wasn’t the only one who noticed though. A strange little man (not Rumpelstiltskin) was often at the Hisey home, as Mike Moran was singing with the Hisey Brothers quartet at the time.
Jon was born in St. Catharines, but now lives in Cambridge. He has lived in Hamilton 9 years, Mississauga 2 years and spent 2 years at school in Saskatchewan. He is an Electronic Engineer, specializing in printed circuit board design. His wife Joyce is an Orthopaedic Surgeon and they have two girls, Rachel, who attended a Torchmen concert when she was a few days old, and Rebecca. Rachel convinced Jon to buy her a horse, while Rebecca competes in gymnastics. Jon has sung bass with the Torchmen since he was 17 years old and he is responsible for the spaghetti factory of cables and wires that we affectionately call the sound system. He also takes care of the Torchmen’s schedule and more often than not, Jon can be found behind the wheel of the bus too. Basically, if anything gets done in this group, it’s Jon’s fault!
His special hobbies are recording and sound engineering and, of course, computers. However, these, and the Mastering Studio in his basement take second place to his devotion to his family, leaving very little of what one might call spare time.
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